Network devices communicate over a network using one or more communication protocols. For example, one of the communication protocols used over packet networks, such as those using the Internet protocol (IP), is transmission control protocol (TCP). TCP is used to ensure that all bytes transmitted by an originating (source) network device are received at a destination network device. A TCP traffic flow is divided into segments which each includes a TCP header and a chunk of data from a data stream. In some networks, a network device that parses TCP segments in data packets is sometimes implemented in a location where data packets in two directions of a data stream (e.g., the receive path and the send path, the two flows in a TCP session) are interlocked. For example, a network device that parses TCP segments may be implemented on the client or server, or may be implemented inline with the TCP traffic flow.